April 08, 2018

The party approached the central spire and see an enormous wooden gate. Mangus pushed the gate open "respectfully but firmly". Inside was a dimly-lit wide hallway, the pervading silence broken by the clip-clop of hooves approaching. Mangus growls.

"Who goes there?" a voice squeaks.

"Who goes there?" Mangus replies.

Detail from the Last Judgement, Lucas Cranach the Elder

"Identify yourself, intruder!"

"It looks like a toad riding a centaur..." the Vamosh the elf whispers, using his infravision to pierce the dimness. What he sees is a horse with the dull face of a man, an enormous toad sits in the saddle atop the hybrid mount.

"I am Mangus, and I've come to collect your taxes."

"You do not collect taxes from the gnome princes," replies the man horse.

"Squeak!" cries its rider.

"We've come to claim this kingdom for the milk witch," Vamosh repies.

The toad draws its lance, and the horse sinks back into the darkness, preparing to charge. Vamosh casts Enlarge on Mangus, who grows by several feet and a hundred pounds. He charged in, feinting high, and then at the last second slashed at the man-horse's legs. The amphibious knight saw through the ruse and turned aside before its mount could be cut down under it. Annemarijn spews a gout of rainbows and glitter in the enclosed darkness. The toad squeaks and goes unconscious.

"Slay the mount, take the hostage!" Mangus growls. He can't land a hit on the chimerical beast. Annemarijn approaches with her club, but can't get close enough to land a hit. The man-horse flails wildly, missing Mangus but dealing a deadly blow to Annemarijn. Mangus does a spinning slash, severing the centaur's major arteries. It drops to the ground.

"Oh man, it's getting cold. So cold..." It's horse-face mutters, voice fading. Annemarijn scooped up the unconscious toad, wrapping him in her cloak and binding him with 50 feet of rope. Mangus finds a finely filigreed key on the toad's person. After several minutes, the toad wakes up and squeaks.

"You show us how to get to the top of the tower and we won't hurt you," Mangus says, grabbing the creature. "Play any dirty tricks and you'll pay! understand?" The toad squeaked .

Moving on the party explore a stable, silent and empty except for some rustling in the back corner. The Elf investigates, and sees an enormous riding mole in the stall. They decide not to mess with it and leave the stable. Using the toad's key they open a locked door, revealing a spiral staircase. The sound of fluttering come from the near ceiling. Annemarijn holds her torch up to get a better look, disturbing a cloud of bat-like creatures with papery wings and the squashed faces of pug dogs.

a bastardry, by myself

Mangus fired a crossbow bolt, disturbing the colony of pug-bats, who descend with keening shrieks. One scratches the Vamosh with a tiny wing dewclaw. The Elf tries to spear it, but fumbles and trips over himself. Mangus attempts to slice one in twain but the pug-bat dodges. Annemarijn backs away to the doorway and bats one of the bats with her (wooden) bat. One beast tears into Annemarijn, causing her to collapse from the mortal wound.

Vamosh throws some scales on the ground and they animate into 2 giant crocodiles. Due to mercurial nature of the spell a burst of green light bathes the area with healing energy and revives Annemarijn. She reeks like a snake house but at least she isn't dead. The crocodiles snap wildly at the pug-bats but can't hit them. After a long struggle the creatures lay in bloody piles across the room.

"Toad! why didn't you tell us about these bats?" Mangus demanded, but it only squeaks in terror.

Leaving the spiral staircase for another time, the group explores another few chambers, including a room full of statues of men and beasts and chimera. Mangus steps back out of the statue room, but Vamosh goes in to explore. It's eerily quiet inside but otherwise nothing of note. They also find a storage room full of enormous spools of brass chain.

Later they find a room and hear someone snoring inside. Mangus opens the door and the group creeps inside. Mangus wants to murder the sleeping figure, but Vamosh says we should tie him up instead. Mangus tries his best to approach the figure but wakes the sleeping figure instead.It opens its huge
mouth and rasps, "What's going on? Squeaks! What's going on?"